Palouse passes public records ordinance

Facing a regular stream of public records requests, the Palouse city council Nov. 24 approved a new ordinance that will tighten the rules on how people request public records from the city.

The new ordinance will limit one public records request per request form. Also, if the fee to make copies for requests goes over $25, the city will charge 10 percent over the fee rate.

Palouse residents Steve McGehee and Jim Farr have submitted 19 public records forms with a total of 92 requests over the past 10 months to build a legal case against the city.

McGehee brought some of the documents he received from public records requests to the internal audit office at WSU where Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove is employed at the information technology office. McGehee believes the records show Echanove was using his time on the job at WSU to work on non-WSU related activities.

At the council meeting last week, Echanove admitted the WSU audit found he had made many non-related phone calls. The WSU audit staff went through Echanove’s work computer and work files Nov. 16.

“I just want to tell the world that I did receive some findings, that I was in violation of state laws,” Echanove announced at the meeting which was attended by 16 residents in addition to council members.

He said his announcement was based on a first draft of the audit results. The official results will be released by the audit office once WSU administration looks it over.

“I can always get better at the things I do,” Echanove told the Gazette in a later interview about the audit.

Palouse resident Connie Newman had heard the city staffers were working an inordinate amount of overtime hours fulfilling the two men’s requests. Last month, Newman took out her own request on how many public records requests the two had filed.

She presented the results at a city council meeting and since then has spearheaded a research effort to pin down how the city could protect itself against the excessive requests.

Also, Councilman Mark Bailey found state law requires cities to keep an index of public records.

Cities can exempt themselves from that law, however, by council resolution. The new ordinance includes that exemption.

Bailey said he didn’t think their new ordinance was going to stop McGehee or Farr from turning in public record requests.

“I think it helps staff in the sense that they will more clearly know the boundaries which they need to operate in. It’s not going to keep [McGehee or Farr] from doing it,” Bailey said.

He said he believes the two have assumed that the city staff and council are up to no good.

“That’s the most frustrating thing to me,” said Bailey, who researched and put together the new ordinance. “They are assuming that there is an intent to do wrong by the mayor and council members.”

Letter writers to the Gazette, along with Newman, have said it appears McGehee has a personal vendetta against Echanove.

When asked if he had a personal vendetta against Echanove, McGehee said they used to be “chums,” when the two worked together on the council in the 1990s.

“I don’t have any vendetta against him. I had high hopes that he would do his job in a professional manner,” McGehee said.

When asked how he felt about the new ordinance, McGehee said this is not the first time the city has tried to restrict forums of public speech.

The city has also restricted how long a person can speak at a city council meeting and questions for the council must be written in advance.

“You bet they don’t want it [various financial facts] to be public knowledge. I bet they’ll do anything in their power to prevent this from becoming public knowledge,” McGehee said.